Branstad pushed Trump to appease farmers on ethanol

Monday, September 9, 2019 11:27 AM

Reuters: At a meeting at the White House on Aug. 19, Terry Branstad, the former Iowa governor and now U.S. ambassador to China, presented President Donald Trump with evidence of rising Farm Belt frustration over his biofuel policy along with a stark warning: You’ve got a problem in Iowa. Branstad told the president that farmers would not stomach policies favoring the oil industry at their expense, according to four people familiar with the substance of the meeting. Before the meeting ended, Trump had already dispatched his Cabinet members to come up with solutions to stem the farm anger, the sources said, setting off a chain reaction that the U.S. corn industry now hopes will mean fresh concessions to help farmers reeling from plunging crop prices and the loss of their biggest export market, China.